#you do not live in a bubble or create in a vacuum sir

[crqstalite]

whats so odd to me is when creators make something for their very niche audience, it breaks containment and to everyone else it looks very serious without context, and then the creator gets mad about their ‘joke’ post when they never tagged or alluded to the fact it was a joke in the first place

[robbyrobinson]

Gods Awaken (XX)

“So you’re telling me that even though you destroyed that book Nyarlathotep got his powers back anyway?”  

“Yes, Eda, that is what happened,” Luz answered solemnly.  

Eda sighed. “Well, I guess that means we’re dead then.”  

Luz’s eyes gleamed. “We can all agree that it is worse than my realization that my Mom wrote the Good Witch Azura books and that I’m Emperor Belos’ granddaughter.”  

Eda nodded. “Yeah, that is ba-wait, what was that last part?”  

Luz chuckled. “Yeah, that was my exact reaction as well.”  

“Makes sense now that I think of it,” Eda noted, “but isn’t it kind of...”  

“Cliche?” Luz added onto her thought.  

“What is a cliché?”  

Lilith interjected. “This is not the most appropriate time for a conversation of this caliber.”  

The Owl Lady and the human girl nodded deciding to speak more about the revelation at a later time.  

The witches of Bonesborough scrambled to obtain a state of control over the sudden wave of dark magic that rocked the town and desecrated their buildings. Houses built alongside the body of the Titan crumbled; stores were wiped clean. Most of the witches set their differences aside to use their magic to prevent debris from falling on them.  

The streets were alive with the sounds of ceaseless chattering and raving over the events. Elder witches overexerted themselves with trying to use their magic spells to keep falling columns of buildings from flattening witchlings. From the destruction wrought, the sky darkened from a sudden storm. It thundered loudly as though it were a living creature. The light from the sun completely absorbed into the vast blackness of the insidious clouds.  

“What is going on!?” one of the male witches yelled.  

Thick, sickening black clouds rolled in silently with the currents. Due to the Boiling Isles’ equivalent of weather being a series of plagues, the witches were already dashing here and forth to get under some scrap of wood or a crude assembly of broken rocks to avoid their skin getting scorched by the acidic precipitation. The cloud loomed over the town for a couple seconds. The cloud swirled and writhed in sickly fashion until they merged together to create a large figure.  

It towered over the town with its ghastly size and boding physique. It was a man, swathing with blackness even darker than the darkest of nights. He resembled a man of some high status perhaps one of the elder kings. The man had some aura to him that made the witches freeze in place out of bewilderment.  

“Children of the Isles,” he announced, “it has been far too long, has it not?”  

The witches looked at each other befuddled. They could sense that there was a twinge of hostility he had with the declaration.  

“I see that your scholars had successfully managed to completely blight my name from the records of the Isles.”  

He snapped his fingers. A large slab of rock emerged from the ground and was crafted into a throne for the large being to sit down in. He flicked his fingers drawing a huge chalice filled with apple blood. He took a large swig of the sweet nectar before speaking again.  

“It is disheartening that this is the state that I left the Isles in thousands of years ago; after literally drawing into my very being and giving your ancestors magic, this is truly the gratitude that you would give me?”  

After taking a long drink of the apple blood, he tossed the chalice away blissfully ignorant of the explosion it caused. “All of you are ungrateful; that ungratefulness lasting from generation to generation. Well, no more.”  

Massive claws surged and bubbled on the Dark Man’s fingers. Before their eyes, he tore open a portal in the space-time continuum. The way in which he tore away reality with such ease amazed the witches but also filled them with despair. Never had they seen something of this caliber in the long history of the Boiling Isles. The sheer raw power that this tall man possessed was unnatural.

Droves of crustacean-fungus like anomalies escaped the rip in space-time. Like locusts, swarms of these creatures blotted out the sun. They came upon the citizens of Bonesborough in such frenzy and lifted them into the air. Swarm after swarm arrived to abduct more citizens and fly them to an uncertain fate.  

Smirking, he opened another portal and withdrew his scepter.  The large gem in the middle of it glowed and began to twist and pull reality around it. Portions of the Boiling Isles started to fade out of existence. The fabric of reality was further ripped down to the seams exposing the backdrop of the pure darkness of the void. Strange masses of tentacular monstrosities fizzled from the darkness of the void.

Before any of the witches could react, those that were captured by the winged anomalies were seized and suspended in midair. They fought against the invisible forces holding them in place, but all they could hear was the deep, sinister, shrilled laughter of their tormentors. Invisible, inky tentacles wrapped around them contributing to more frantic movement. With each movement only strengthening the monster’s grasp, sharp suckers stabbed their way through their bodies. Splintering pain flowed through their bodies as they heard the maniacal laughter of the obscure beasts and the hideous sound of their blood being greedily sucked away. Blood was visibly getting vacuumed through the tentacles of the beasts who now were shown as having no visible face rather a large mandible surrounded by endless numbers of appendages. They were becoming bloated from the blood.  

The tall man looked at the chaos with a lack of interest. Stretching his arms, he drew from the ground again and mentally crafted it into a chariot. Once the chariot was made, he summoned more creatures from the void. They resembled birds, larger than the ones typically seen on the Isles roughly the size of an elephant. And yet instead of beaks and feathers, they instead had heads calling to mind a majestic horse; in the place of their feathers were slimy, oily scales of a reptile. They flew in a galloping fashion neighing in the presence of their summoner. Legions of these bizarre horses stopped in front of the chariot and were strapped in ropes. He got up from his makeshift throne and perched his large frame in the front of the chariot.  

“For thousands of years ever since your ungrateful ancestors locked me away, the one thought consumed my mind; that being vengeance.”  

He stared over seeing Belos’ empire at a far distance. “You are all cordially invited to a party.”

They looked at the peculiar man with worried expressions.  

“Before this day is done, the Boiling Isles will be torn down brick by brick, to its smallest atom and from that level of devastation will birth a new age. Out of the ashes of the fire, I will build a new world where my acolytes will not know of what came before them and will pledge their allegiance to me and my alone.”  

The witches screamed in unison again. “What do you want from us?”  

He held his scepter out and twirled it at them. “My star protégé will be taking on one of your witches; consider this a good show that will satiate my boredom long enough to temporarily withhold the destruction of your world.”  

He took his scepter and smacked it against the rim of his chariot. The horse monster, now recognized as being his shantaks, squealed and began to flap their massive wings. With a galloping motion, the legions of winged creatures lifted the heavy chariot off the ground and into the air.

“Come on, put your back into it,” a teacher yelled.  

One of the teachers used their finger to create the illusion of a battering ram. With it, he sprinted for the entrance only for the device to fail when the dark magic holding the barrier in place rebounded on him. He was flung back landing where the guard that Nyarlathotep merged with the lockers was located.  

The Abomination Teacher ordered his abomination to use its fists to punch a hole in the barrier. Like any other abomination, it followed his command, but the result was always the same. The magic wall was reducing the abomination down to the stumps of his hands forcing the abomination to temporarily become undone and then reassemble itself to try again.  

“Are we going to die in here?” a student whimpered.

Principal Bump put his finger against his mouth. “Now, now, calm down, everyone: we are not going to die.”  

None of the students were truthfully convinced by the Principal’s words yet they were trying to grant themselves a little sense of normalcy. The Abomination Teacher called his abomination off and he looked at the school’s principal. “Sir, is there something on your mind?”  

“Could we discuss it by ourselves?”  

The Abomination Teacher ordered for his servant to keep guard of the students and walked over to Principal Bump. Sternness manifested through his eyes. “What is actually going on? Who was that man?”  

Principal Bump sighed. “There is so much more behind the history of the Boiling Isles that was expunged from the records; one of them involved a figure who was probably one of the most evil beings I have ever encountered: now I fear he had returned to his full power.”  

“Well, what can we possibly do about this...man?”  

Principal Bump shook his head. “The magic barrier he made was designed using a powerful, dark otherworldly spell that I am afraid no ordinary witch can ever hope to make as much as a dent in it.”  

Eyes widened, the Abomination Teacher spoke again. “B-but if the students find out-”  

“Hush!”  

Principal Bump looked behind a corner making sure that none of the other students were eavesdropping on their conversation. “We should probably keep the students occupied for a while to keep them from inciting a hysteria.”  

The Abomination Teacher also gave a passing glance behind the corner. “And there is nothing we can do?”  

“Aye; either Nyarlathotep returns and removes the enchantment spell he placed on the school, or”  

“Or?”  

“Or we could get lucky and have an Elder God come to our defense and destroy the barrier.”  

The Abomination Teacher squinted his eyes. “An elder god?”  

“It’s going to be a long discussion,” Principal Bump emphasized, “so listen carefully.”  

Skara and some of the popular clique took their text books and slammed them on the outside. The books returned at full force towards their owners. Only Skara was able to narrowly avoid getting creamed by the books by ducking, but the same could not be said for the other girls.  

“What kind of magic is this?” Skara asked aloud.  

Gus scratched his chin. “Looks like something you’d see being made by the construction coven.”  

He placed his hands against the wall of the barrier, pressing his palms. “Something tells me that this isn’t even the native magic common here.”  

“I am getting really concerned for Luz and Amity,” Willow said. “There should be some way to contact them.”  

She drew a circle in the air and retrieved her purple scroll. She tried to login to her Penstagram account, but the connection was not getting through. A few more of the students saw what Willow was doing and they to took out their scrolls to call for assistance. However, much like before, the connection was terminated.  

“Somehow the magic barrier had cut us off from the outside world,” Willow observed, “we’re sitting turtle ducks now.”  

As she turned away, she caught something in the corner of her eye with her peripheral vision. One of the students had a potted plant that was pitched at a window prior to their imprisonment. It appeared to be a cross between a Venus flytrap and a tomato plant. For whatever reason, likely because of it being almost tossed out the window, it had its large mandibles wrapped around a piece of the magic barrier keeping the shield from completing.  

“Willow, squeeze yourself through the opening,” Gus said.  

Willow looked carefully at the escape route that was seemingly pre-ordained. She then looked at Willow and the others. “Don’t worry; I’ll tell Luz what happened and maybe she and Eda can help us.”  

Taking a short breath, Willow cautiously slid herself underneath the opening while ensuring to not catch the wrath of the sapient plant. Her head and shoulders successfully slid under the barrier followed by her torso. Squeezing her ribs under, she froze for a moment upon hearing a crackling sound. Purple sap was dropping onto her abdomen. Looking up to her horror, the dark magic was slicing its way ever slowly through the potted plant. It still had a strong grip on the barrier, but for how long, Willow could not say. Scrambling, Willow’s forearms bent and nudged the grass.  

Grunting, Willow ben her body in a backward motion practically falling out the school with the back of her head. Now with better maneuvering, Willow quickly drew in her legs. The barrier sliced through the plant’s mandibles like a guillotine splattering its sap on the window and its sill. The school was now completely devoid of any alternative sources of escape. Willow got up on her feet and wiped the dirt off her clothes.  

“Don’t worry, guys, I’ll be back!”